Published 4:00 am, Saturday, May 13, 2000

Sometimes you don't know whether you're going to get
Good Danny
or Bad Danny.

In what I hope was a once-in-a- lifetime coincidence, two movies featuring Danny DeVito opened yesterday, one of his best and one of his worst. "The Big Kahuna" contains one of DeVito's most accomplished performances, the product not only of a lifetime of acting but also of a life sensitively experienced.

The other, "Screwed," you should pardon the expression, is a complete misfire. Poor DeVito shouldn't feel singled out. "Screwed" is an embarrassment for everyone involved.

The new Norm Macdonald movie, which opened yesterday without press screenings, gives stupid, vulgar comedy a bad name.

Macdonald is the put-upon chauffeur-butler for a rich old skinflint (Elaine Stritch). In an effort to extort ransom from her, he ends up kidnapping himself (don't ask). DeVito is a morgue worker recruited to provide a dead body to fake the chauffeur's death.

It is a real chore to sit through and may be some kind of a first for a comedy. It doesn't have a single honest laugh in it.

Musical comedy veteran Stritch not only has to endure the indignity of being exposed in her underwear for laughs, she also is shown on two occasions putting her false teeth in.

Don't waste any hand-wringing on Stritch, though. She is a tough old broad and will survive.